Blood Eagle

The Blood Eagle was a gruesome means of execution against royalty by the Vikings that was most famously applied by Ivar the Boneless of Sudreyjar to the captured King Aella of Northumbria on 21 March 867. The execution would see the victim's back be cut parallel to the spine, the flesh peeled outwards, the ribs severed with an axe, and the lungs pulled through the opening to create what looked like folded wings.